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|hebrewr=Yĕhovah

|hebrewr=Yĕhovah

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|strong=H3068

}}The '''tetragrammaton''' is a sequence of four Hebrew letters that represent the personal name of God. In English, it is usually given as YHWH. The Masoretic text, the modern Hebrew text of the Old Testament, adds vowels to the consonant-only ancient text. It gives the tetragrammaton as ''Yĕhovah''. The King James Version transliterates this word as "[[Jehovah]]." The tetragrammaton appears 6,519 times in the Old Testament.

}}The '''tetragrammaton''' is a sequence of four Hebrew consonants that represent a personal name of God. In English, it is usually represented as YHWH. In the Hebrew text, the tetragrammaton is given as ''Yĕhovah''. This word appears 6,519 times in scripture. In the [[King James Version]], it is usually indicated with an all-caps "GOD" or "LORD." In four cases, the KJV transliterates the tetragrammaton as "[[Jehovah|JEHOVAH]]."  

The Masoretic text was vowelized in the Middle Ages. Giving the original pronunciation was considered sacrilegious, so the ''Yĕhovah'' spelling intentionally misrepresents pronunciation. [[Judaism|Jews]] believe that the Lord's true name is unspeakable until the arrival of the [[messiah]] and the restoration of the [[Temple of Jerusalem|Temple]] in [[Jerusalem]]. Modern scholars have reconstructed the original pronunciation as "[[Yahweh]]."  

In ancient Hebrew, there were no vowels but only consonants. The tetragrammaton is given this way in the [[Dead Sea scrolls]]. In Middle Ages, a group of Jewish scholars called the Masorites vowelized the Hebrew scripture. In the case of the tetragrammaton, the Masoretic text intentionally misrepresents pronunciation so as to prevent the Lord's name from being use sacrilegiously. Modern scholars have reconstructed the original pronunciation as "[[Yahweh]]."  

The word "tetragrammaton" is from a Greek word meaning "consisting of four letters."

The word "tetragrammaton" is from a Greek word meaning "consisting of four letters."